Teaching Books

Six Ways to Incorporate Teaching Books in the Primary Classroom

If you teach a unit of study on Teaching Books (How To Books), we can get our kids ready for this writing in the day-to-day life of the classroom. This post will share some tips I learned at a TCRWP workshop. On a personal note, I love the Tony Stead and Linda Hoyt's units of study for this genre of writing in kindergarten. Their procedural units are kid friendly, easy to read and implement in the classroom.  You don't have to be doing a unit of study to create teaching posters for your classroom.

The Mentor Text that comes with Toni and Linda's Book 

Tips On Writing Teaching Books

1. Videotape the students doing a class job and write the steps together. Below you can see a quick video I did of feeding the fish with my class. When writing our How to Feed the Fish sign, we watched the video again and again while writing.

2. Write How to Instructions for choice time games such as checkers, Uno, and other favorite board games. You could take photographs of each step and add the text. Although the example below is interactive writing, you could make this a shared writing lesson where the teacher does all of the writing.

3. Write a How to Get Ready poster and display it in the coat area. For example; in Tony Stead's units of study he had the whole class write a How to Get Ready to go home story. I love this idea because the students have something that's familiar to them, to actually go out in the hall and do the steps. Years ago, I would let the kids write HOW TO stories and they would pick topics that didn't ordinarily do, for example, making a cake. The child would struggle with the steps because making cake was not something they actually did. Here are some other examples of using procedural posters.

4. Have a How to Wash your hands sign hanging in the bathroom. Again this is a familiar activity that children do every day, and they know the steps.

5. After learning a new math have the students write directions for the game they just learned. At reading workshop time you could write about a strategy the class is working on.

6. Kids love recess. Why not go outside and videotape the kids playing tag, a cartwheel or the Monkey Bars. Keep the video short.


We can then have our students brainstorm a list and put them in categories:

How To Make Something: A drawing Your siblings happy Favorite food A Valentine

How to Play: Tag at recess Hide and seek Chess Computer game T-Ball

How To Do: Monkey bars Change a diaper Have a good book discussion Science experiment Ride your bike Cross the street safely

I like to make a bulletin board with their ideas. Click here for the template. 

Joyfully yours in teaching friends how to do the monkey bars,

Melissa

4 Thinking Maps to do with the Snow

This blog post will share snow related Thinking Maps. 

Are you ready for more snow in New England? YIKES!!!

Bubble Maps

Describe snow in this Bubble map.

Describe a snowman. 

Brace Map Snowman 

click here for Bubble and Brace Map

Flow Map How To Make A Snowman 

How To Make A Snowman Book

 no lines or lines 

click here for How To Download

How To Build A Snowman U Tube
{lOVE this}

How To Writing With Thinking Maps

This week I began procedural writing with my students. I decided to kick off this unit by using thinking maps.

Prior to this lesson, the students were told that they were going to be learning about How To Writing.

How to stories teach someone how to do something. Right away students came up with some ideas.

One boy said, "I can write a How to Play Basketball."
Another, "I can teach how to play football."

Step #1
We began by filling in a Circle Map Getting Ready for School. Each child worked on their Thinking map.

Starting with the Circle Map allowed the students to think about what they do in the morning without having to worry about sequencing or writing the words.

The students came back to the rug and shared the different things they do in the morning to get ready for school.

Click here for Thinking Maps 

Step#2
We made a class Flow map on How to Get Ready for School.
During this part of the lesson, we shared what was on our Circle Maps and what order the day goes for most of us. We agreed on most of the steps. Students were told that they would have the opportunity to write their own How To Get Ready for School book and they would include more details in their stories.

Step#3
We labeled our Flow map with action words. We read a book called Verbs by Kate Biggs.

Step #4
We shared different ideas for How To stories. Students filled in a How To sheet.
Click here to see their ideas. My favorite is How to go bird watching.

The following day the students each wrote a How To Get To School book. Tony Stead always has you start the unit by everyone writing the same topic together. I think using Thinking Maps prior to the writing was beneficial for helping students organize their thoughts.

click here for How To book

How To Writing

Here are some new How To Books teachers have shared with me.

{Thank You Stef}

 by Pebble Books 

How To by Julie Morstad

{Thank you Susan}

This book will spark the imagination of any five-year-old. 

The illustrations are BEAUTIFUL.
The text is a simple pattern on each page.

The ending of this book is perfect too. 

Transition Words

For this lesson the children had to help me put the transition words in the correct spot. This lesson comes from Linda Hoyt Mastering the Mechanics. 

After the lesson, I glued the words into a class big book. Students helped illustrate the pages. 

Work Work

Students practiced making transition words.

Transition Word Cards

Students can bring the word cards back to their seat during writing

time. 

click here for Transition Cards 

How To Anchor Charts

{Lucy Calkins}

I love how this anchor chart connects with the mentor text!

Mentor Text

HOW TO BOOK TEMPLATE

click here to see some class How To Writing 

Click Here for Book

Classroom Checklist for How To Writing

I put a + for goal and a circle around the +

if the goal was achieved

Click Here for Checklist

How-To Writing

I am getting ready to start HOW To Stories. 

I have decided this year, to use pieces of the Lucy Calkin {new book} and Tony Stead/Linda Hoyt books on Procedural writing.

MENTOR TEXTS FOR HOW-TO'S

Before Starting this new writing  Unit: 

We read a few HOW TO STORIES

On Demand Writing Assignment:

{Pre-Assessment} 

Have students write a HOW TO Story.

KICKING OFF HOW-TO WRITING

Shared Writing: Make a Class How-To Procedural Poster

PROCEDURAL POSTERS

Click Here to See Class Samples from My Class

CLICK HERE FOR POSTER

11X18

I like that Tony and Linda have students create procedural posters all on the same topic. You can click the Voice Thread below to see some samples from last year. This year, I decided to create a template for my students. I found that many kindergarteners were getting confused for placement of print and sequencing. 

Different kinds of How-To Paper
click here 
click here

How To Books

I am always on the lookout for picture books that connect to procedural writing. This summer I have come across two picture books to add to my list.The first one is called How To Teach a Slug to Read by Susan Pearson. 

 This book has advice and steps on how to teach a slug to read. 

I think this is an excellent book to read in the fall when kicking off reading workshop and returning to when teaching procedural writing. I plan to have my class write a book innovation.

HOW TO TEACH A KINDERGARTENER HOW TO READ.

The second book is Everyone Can Learn To Ride A Bicycle by Chris Raschka. This book is about learning to ride a bike. 

I know in my classroom I have many students who try to write books about bike riding. The illustrations are beautiful and very expressive. I plan to add this book to my illustration study too.  

                                     

Happy Reading! 

Kindergarten How To's

We just finished our unit of study on Procedural writing.  I used this first template A Book Of How To's  to have students draw illustrations for a How To IDEA. You can see some Ideas below.

The longer I teach, the simpler I am making my bulletin boards. 

The child fills in their How To Topic samples below
click here

How To Decorate a Christmas tree

 How To Jump in the pool

How To  Make a snow girl

How To  Read a book

How To  Make  A Jack O Lantern

How to Be a Teacher

How To Be a Princess

click here for How To Paper

My class wrote about three/four How To's each. We used the checklist below when we were ready to publish.

click here for READY to PUBLISH sheet